Meet Mark

Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Sisson. I’m 63 years young. I live and work in Malibu, California. In a past life I was a professional marathoner and triathlete. Now my life goal is to help 100 million people get healthy. I started this blog in 2006 to empower people to take full responsibility for their own health and enjoyment of life by investigating, discussing, and critically rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness...

The Many Uses of Coconut Flour

A barrage of comments to our post on low-carb thickeners confirmed that while coconut flour is terrible for thickening sauces, it does serve other purposes. Our last post on a Primal flour – almond meal – went over well, so I figured the time was ripe for a look at coconut flour.

Coconut flour is simply dried, ground up coconut meat. Most likely you’ll be buying it online or from a specialty grocer, like Whole Foods or a food co-op, but you’ll occasionally come across highly processed, ultra-white coconut flour. Stay away from this. The good stuff will be like actual coconut – slightly cream colored, rather than bone white. You can make your own at home with a food processor, but without a grain mill you’ll probably have issues getting a “floury” consistency. If that’s okay with you, have at it.

Whether you’re making your own or buying it pre-made, always make sure your coconut flour is unsweetened. Pretty much all that you’ll come across is unsweetened, but it’s always worth it to make sure.

Apparently, defatting is one of the major steps in making it, so coconut flour doesn’t have much of the delicious, hearty coconut fat left over. It’s too bad, but understandable when you realize you’re dealing with a dry flour designed for baking. That’s pretty much my only qualm with coconut flour, as everything else looks good. According to my just-bought bag of Aloha Nu organic coconut flour, 2 tablespoons of the stuff contain:

Those are pretty great stats, especially when compared to the glucose-boosting powers of “normal” flours like wheat or white. Less hearty than almond meal, but also less heavy and closer in texture to the other, forbidden flours (if that’s what you’re going for). Coconut flour can be used to bake, but be forewarned that it’s very dry and doesn’t stick together well (hence its uselessness as a sauce thickener); avoid this problem by adding eggs to the mix, which allows it to bond and form batter. I’ve also had success using it in a light egg batter for fried coconut chicken. I’d assume it would work equally well for shrimp or fish.

Okay, onto a few recipes.

Coconut Bread

I’m not a big baker, but I can appreciate those who are. For those budding Primal bakers who still miss bread, why not try to make some with coconut flour? Slightly sweet and fairly light (as opposed to the denser breads made with almond meal), this coconut bread should do the trick.

Method:
Preheat your oven to 350. Whisk it all together, or blend in a food processor until all lumps are gone. Grease a bread pan with butter or coconut oil and pour your batter in. Bake for 40 minutes.

If we split it up into six servings each slice will, according to FitDay, have:
30.9 g fat
13.2 g carbs (9 g fiber)
8.35 g protein

Coconut Pancakes

Drizzle these with honey and berries, wrap up some bacon and eggs for a Primal breakfast burrito, or just eat them plain. These things are incredibly easy to make.

Method:
Mix these ingredients and let them sit for five minutes. Oil or grease up your pan and heat over medium heat. Pour about a 1/4 cup of batter for each crepe, allowing each side to brown before flipping it.

Coconut Crusted Chicken

This doesn’t even require an ingredient list. Simply take your chicken pieces (or shrimp, or fish), season them with salt and pepper, dunk them in an egg bath (just scrambled up raw egg), then dredge them in coconut flour, then back in the egg bath, and then coat with dried coconut flakes. After that, it’s just a matter of frying them in oil (use coconut) or sautéing them in some butter. Crunchy, delicious, and low-carb.

Any Primal bakers out there with good tips or recipes? Let me know in the comments section!

117 thoughts on “The Many Uses of Coconut Flour”

I have been making my own flour by pulsing coconut in the food processor. Works pretty well and i know what i am getting (unlike buying it in the bag). It is grrrrrrrrreat for baking but work of warning… it is very VERY dry, so plan accordingly.

Instead of the eggs you can use “Ener-G Egg Replacer” or to stay simpler, just grind up some flax seeds (or you can buy flax meal already ground) and use them. Mix about 1 tablespoon of flax meal with 2 tablespoons of water and let them stand for 15 to 20 minutes to thicken to replace 1 egg. We have a vegan bakery so we are always converting recipes. The Egg replacer is quicker, but sometimes we like the simplicity and additional nutrients of the flax seeds.

On a related note, coconut flakes + curry powder = deliciousness. I’ve also taken to using arrow root as a thickener recently, just make sure you wash your pans soon after cooking. That stuff turns to cement.

Thanks for covering this topic! I’ve been experimenting with coconut flour for a few months now and I love its soft, rich texture. Recipes almost always need more liquid to compensate for the dryness of the flour.

I use a cup of hazel nut meal with 1/4 cup coconut flour and melted butter to make pie crusts (just like a gram cracker crust!). Bake at 350 for 5-7 minutes, cool and then add filling of choice! Delish!!

Hi! I was looking for a crust recipe to replace gram cracker… how much melted butter do you generally use for this and have you ever tried almond meal instead of hazelnut? I’m trying for a primal-esque cheesecake!

I watched a friend make coconut flour… it is a by-product of making coconut milk from shredded coconut. She processed shredded coconut with warm water in her vitamix, then strained it in a jelly strainer bag and she squeezed it dry… after draining and squeezing, the stuff left in the bag works just like coconut flour… she made muffins and something similar to the coconut crusted shrimp with it. And the coconut milk got a nice later of cream on top as it sat on the counter. I think she used 1:1 ratio of warm water to coconut shreds…

I got hold of some Bob’s Red Mill coconut flour, and I made two of the recipes.

First, I made the coconut bread. It seemed pretty dry when I put it in the pan, but I didn’t want to mess with the recipe since I wasn’t sure what it should be like. It came out dry, all right; I probably would have choked to death if I didn’t have water at hand! It was fantastic for sopping up the extra sauce in the cauliflower with alfredo sauce I had later on.

Then, I made the pancakes without the cinnamon and nutmeg, since my husband can’t stand those spices, plus I wanted a more neutral flavor so I could try them out as a tortilla/bread substitute.

They were great! The consistency is very similar to cornbread, so I was inspired to wrap them around some all-natural hot dogs, along with ketchup and mustard and pickle relish. It was a very satisfying substitution for corn dogs.

wow I had quite the opposite experience, I loved the Coconut bread, it satisfied all my carb cravings, and was perfect with a little almond butter or agave nectar on top. I really didn’t like the pancakes, they just didn’t taste that good to me and they cooked oddly.

Really enjoyed your post and have saved your blog on my fav’s. wanted to ask have you tried Konjac glucomannan flour as a thickener? Offered from the company that makes Miracle Noodle. Net carb free and some good fiber.

Inspired by dragonmamma’s hot dog wraps, I decided to make some “hamburger buns” from the pancake recipe. Instead of the spices recommended I added a touch of salt and some Old Bay Seasoning. I also sprinkled some hemp seeds on them as they cooked. After frying the pancakes in coconut oil, I realized I had not included the coconut milk in the recipe. Oops. No wonder the batter seemed kinda thick.

Surprisingly, even without the coconut milk, they turned out great. Just manually spread the batter out when it hits the pan. I agree that they do have a cornmeal pancake texture but without the grit and they made a very nice hamburger bun. Recipe with out the coconut milk made 4 hamburger sized pancakes.

At our cook-out on the 4th of July I made the coconut pancakes again but this time included the coconut milk. Oddly they turned out about the same as when I left out the coconut milk but of course the raw batter was not as thick and it made more pancakes. They were a hit at the party and were especially good wrapped around the hot dogs. Yum.

I noticed that some of the recipes are made using baking powder. My husband is severely gluten intolerant (celiac). He has been told he cannot tolerate corn because of its gluten content.(some celiacs apparently can-but he cannot) Any suggestions of what can be used in its place?

Making your own baking powder is the safest way to go if corn bothers your husband. Products may be labeled GF and contain corn. Corn does not contain the mainstream Gluten that most celiacs need to avoid.
The other option is to call the companies that make baking powder and ask for a list of ingredients.

Whole foods carries wheat and corn free baking powder, further there are many brands of gluten free baking powder at health food stores or a Whole Foods type market. I learned about the gluten thing in baking powder after much detective work as to why I felt crappy after using gluten free baking mix with regular baking powder. Enjoy.

I’ll share my coconut pancake/waffle recipe, because most of the recipes I’ve seen contain high numbers of eggs compared to mine (for the record: I love eggs, too, but I prefer a coconut-dominant flavor rather than an egg-dominant flavor to my pancakes & waffles).

1 can (15oz) coconut milk
3/4 cup shredded coconut
2/3 cup almond meal
1 or 2 eggs (one is plenty for waffles, you may want to go to two for pancakes, or if you like ’em eggy)
tiny bit of salt
tiny bit of baking powder
and, if you’re doing them, vanilla and coconut extracts (1/2 tsp and 4-6 drops, respectively)

Amazing. Seriously. If you make waffles, let them cook a long time until they’re crispy. Enjoy!

You’re welcome! I eat these pretty much every day. And, like you’ve mentioned, once you’re away from sweeteners, you don’t miss the syrup/honey/agave or whatever most people put on pancakes and waffles these days.

These are so good, they don’t even need butter. But who am I to stop anyone from adding some? (I once learned the cardinal rule of cooking from an organic chef… “When in doubt, add mo’ butter!”

Horrible! I followed the recipe exactly. I made waffles, so I only used one egg. I knew something wasn’t right when the batter hit the iron and it looked like it was boiling! They did taste like coconut, but that’s all I can say that was good about them. All the coconut milk evaporates and you are left with coconut and almond grit that sticks to the waffle iron. What a complete waste of ingredients! Please, don’t waste your money, folks!

I especially like these with strawberry, blueberry or mixed berry fruit compote. Cook frozen berries in a pot with a little arrowroot and a little juice or water and added sweetener of choice, like honey. Cook to desired tenderness and thickness. Use as topping on your waffles. Coconut cream is really good on these too, or a little butter and honey. Delish!

I bought some organic coconut flour at Vitamin Cottage, and used it to make lemon-poppyseed mini muffins today.
I am so happy with this recipe that I will make the larger size next time. Anyone can find the recipe at Elanaspantry.com . Search “coconut flour recipes”. She also has a gf cookbook that is getting rave reviews…from myself, the press, and lots of my friends. The Gluten Free Almond Flour cookbook, by Elana Amsterdam.
Cyn

I LOVE coconuts and am glad I found this info! I am definitely trying these pancakes tomorrow morning for Easter. They sound yummy! By the way, you CAN make your own coconut flour at home. You do need a few simple tools. You need to of course drain the water, and keep it (always!) then seperate the meat from the shell. Add the meat into a food processor and process until it’s pretty much shredded. Add in all of the coconut water and process until it’s sort of fluffy looking. Then you will need a milk bag (cheep and useful for many other things, like almond milk). Pour the coconut mixture into the milk bag and “milk it” until it is completely dry. The milk that comes out is now your delicious coconut milk nad the pulp left over is going to be your coconut flour. You then need to dry out the pulp. I use my Excaliber dehydrator at 105 degrees to keep it “raw” but you can use your oven set at the lowest temperature as well. It only takes a short while, dependng on the temp, so keep checking it. The pulp basically needs to just be completely dry. Next, place all of the dry pulp back into a clean processor and process until it breaks up and resembles “flour.” Stick it in the freezer or use immediately. So good and best of all, you get the tastiest coconut milk as well! Hope this helps! Enjoy!

You CAN make coconut flour, I did it just the other day BUT I did it first by making coconut milk by taking the unsweetenend, raw, organic coconut meat I bought in bulk and put that in a bowl with HOT water and let it sit for about 30 min. I put the contents of the bowl into a muslin bag (cheesecloth should work too) and squeeze out the moisure. What you get is a high fat coconut milk. You can get one more “milking” out of this by repeating the process. The second squeezing results in more of a skim milk. I put it in the fridge and I got the most lovely coconut oil!!!! I took the squeezed coconut meat and put it in my food dehydrator and then put it in a coffee grinder and made flour within a couple of minutes. Perfect! It’s work but makes for some cheap coconut products.

Hi, just thought Id share a cheap source of coconut flour with you. I’ve been round every health food place in town with no luck, but I looked on google and found this at a 1/4 the price of the most common brands. I used their spices in the past and they were ace, just hope this is the same.

The pancakes are amazing!! So close to “real” pancakes!! Mmmmm!!! But I was just wondering to what extent I should be using coconut flour, and making these pancakes. Do they have a lot of sugar? Is the flour itself (say, if I were to crust fish with it) fatty like almond flour? I’m trying to stay slim while still enjoying tasty treats every now and then. Any suggestions or knowledge on the coconut flour?

I use coconut flour everyday as a porridge kind of like oatmeal and I find that if I use less I accually gain weight once I up my intake to at least 2 times perday my weight starts to come down, I have experimented many times doing this to see if it was just something I was imagining and now I know for sure it helps keep my weight under control and does not affect my blood sugar. I don’t know if its the fiber or what. I find that it also helps me to feel fuller much longer and I have energy with it. If I eat just eggs and bacon in the morning and don’t have my porridge I am accually much more tired and feel foggy.

For the porridge I just use, 1/4 cup coconut flour, 1 tsp flax meal, 1 tsp sweetner, some cinnamon and about 1/8th to 1/4 cup almond milk, then I pour some boiling water on it for the consistency I want and its ready.

Reminds me of cream of wheat. I am sure not everyone will like this but I love it. Also you can cook it if you like or add coconut milk. I just make mine like this because it is so much easier and hits the spot for me.

Coconut pancakes (i.e. pancakes made without real flour) will never be pancakes. They are pancakes’ awkward, evil, slightly deformed, red-neck cousin. They’ll never taste as good as pancakes. Period.

I remember what pancakes tasted like. They tasted like Heaven. A small slice of Heaven that God placed on this earth just to piss us off. Just like doughnuts, muffins, toast, pasta, rice, beer, milkshakes, and all the other tasty sh…stuff… that we won’t eat anymore. He’s sick like that. He likes to torture us with stuff that’s clearly bad for us……but that tastes oooh so goooood. I guess if I ruled the universe, I’d mess with us too. But, I digress.

Anyway, stop making it sound like we’re lucky to be eating coconut pancakes! Coconut pancakes are what Yoohoo is to chocolate. It’s what methadone is to heroin (I imagine). It’s what masturbation is to sex (oh, yes I DID!!). It’s what being a Kansas City Royals fan must be like (OH, YES I DID!!!). It’s for when the real thing just isn’t an option. So, just accept that coconut pancakes are better for you than real pancakes and be done with it; don’t try and pretend that people who eat pancakes “don’t know what they’re missing.” Here . . . . THESE are what real pancakes are like:

Look at ‘em. LOOK AT ‘EM. All fluffy and delicious. Kind of makes you think: “if these are bad for you, why did God make ‘em so damn tasty??” (for answer: see above).

Anyhow, here’s my coconut pancake recipe. They suck………I would know; I eat ‘em all the time.

(makes about 4 cakes)
Take 1 tablespoon of coconut powder (actually, I use just a little bit more than a tablespoon, but not much more) and mix the powder with some cinnamon and about three pinches of kosher salt (so it’s all incorporated). In a separate bowl, crack two eggs and add about two tablespoons of heavy cream or coconut milk. Beat that with a fork until its nice and creamy yellow (like you were making scrambled eggs). Then take about 1/12 to 2 tablespoons of butter and melt it in the microwave (should take about 25 seconds). Add the melted butter to the egg mixture and stir. Then add the powder/cinnamon/salt mixture to the egg mixture. It doesn’t mix very well at first, but just keep at it and it will all blend together (you’ll have to scrape the walls of the bowl a bunch of times). Make sure you mix it till it’s pretty smooth. These aren’t like real pancakes (see above). The batter should be smooth and almost a little runny. If it is thick and lumpy like pancake batter, the cakes will taste all gritty. These pancakes come out thin, more like crepes.

Get a non-stick pan nice and hot (I usually put the pan on the burner before I start mixing the ingredients and keep it on medium). Then just poor the batter in and cook on both sides. It’s usually a couple minutes on each side. Generally, I add a pad of butter to each cake after I take them out of the pan, just to keep them moist. I also cook an egg or two and add it on top.

Add whatever you like; they’re still not pancakes.

(I realize that this is just a slight variation on the recipe in Mark’s post, but, in this instance, the thinner and fattier the cake, the better, in my opinion)

By the way, I am allergic to nuts so I can’t really comment on the coconut pancake recipes that use almond meal, etc……but, I will anyway: I bet they taste better with real flour. And, even if you’re right and they don’t……too bad: I can’t have them, so they don’t count. If you think that is unfair, feel free to give me a call at the number listed below and we can have a civil discussion on the topic.

1-800-YOUR-PANCAKES-SUCK

Ok, I’m joking (and a bit jealous). I’m sure they’re delicious (seriously), and it’s great that you found a cool alternative (oh and congrats to the guy who won the contest – I liked the video). Just gettin’ a small laugh at your expense. All in good fun. We cool.

For loads of great coconut recipes I can hihly recommend Bruce Fife’s book “Cooking with Coconut Flour”. I’ve tried several both sweet and savory recipes and they are all fantastic! He does use sugar in his recipes, but gives also lower sugar versions with stevia. What I do is I replace the amount of sugar (in the lower sugar version) with an equal amount of erythrithol and then add some stevia. Works every time.

I made the coconut bread twice. The first time I baked this recipe was last night and I just got done baking the second one. My husband and I absolutely LOVE it. It definitely satisfies our carb craving. I added 3 tablespoons of honey in the second batch and it tastes just a tad sweeter. Reminds me of corn bread. 🙂 Thank you for sharing this recipe!

I was nosing around a mainstream nutritional website (http://nutritiondata.self.com/) looking at a measure they called “IF” (for “inflammation factor”) for various foods. I put in kale, which came up with a nice positive score of 257 (which was meant to indicate that it was highly anti-inflammatory). Pleased with myself (as I eat alot of kale), I began looking at their IF for other foods I liked to eat. I was a bit puzzled when I looked at IF for coconut and raw coconut products (which are supposed to be our good friends). These IF scores were very bad, often worse serving for serving than the IF for cakes, pizza, ice creams, etc. For example, for “coconut milk, raw (liquid expressed from grated meat and water)”, the IF was -498 (large and negative); for “one cup of coconut meat, raw”, the IF was -225. In contrast “one large (67 g) doughnut, cake-type, plain, chocolate-coated or frosted” the IF was -173 and for “(1/8th of an 18 oz cake) 64 g Cake, yellow, commercially prepared, with chocolate frosting” the IF was -135. Shocked, I looked a little at the explanatory material for IF, and found that it penalized foods high in saturated fat. What do you think about this? Is this IF measure way off the mark scientifically or is a cup of coconut meat really as inflammatory to our bodies as a quarter of a Sara Lee chocolate cake?

Saturated fats have been completely exonerated with regards to heart disease, weight, etc. so I wouldn’t worry about it at all. We absolutely need healthy fats of all kinds for our brain and every cell in the body.

don’t use egg replacer if you can help it. The commercial one has sulfites in it, leavening agents and potato starches, which are so bad for you. Want to get a wrecked liver like mine? Eat sulfited foods. Enough said.
I can’t tell you enough how horrible it is to eat and then have your heart start racing and have trouble breathing.

These things taste just like chicken tenders! Only made the healthy way. I put a dab of organic ketchup on them and was just in pure bliss. Got leftovers for tomorrow heheh, these will make for a delicious salad.

I am so glad I found this site; I do not have the health problems that condemn me to alternative flours, but I do enjoy baking and trying new things. I am a recent transplant to guatemala, and in a failed attempt to make coconut oil in my vitamix, I made a big bag of chopped, de-fattened, de-milked coconut meat that I saved in the freezer, knowing I would someday discover how to use it! Now I have some interesting ideas to try.
As to the weight issue and IF index, I read on a coconut oil site (long ago) that a minimum of 2 tbsp (or something like that) coconut oil a day in your diet will actually help your body process and get rid of your fat somehow, so although it is a saturated fat, it is of a healthy kind. Probably because it is a natural, whole food of the plant variety. Anyhow, interesting facts/theories to look up if you are interested.
PS, I was using my coconut oil as a moisturizer on face and body, in addition to brushing it on my loaves of bread to give it a shine. I did use it a couple times to grease the skillet for “real” pancakes, and it worked fine. good luck!

Mark, you mention that coconut flour has “10 g carbs (with 9 g fiber, bringing the net carb count to a measly 1)”. When counting daily carb grams, should we be deducting some portion to derive a “net” number? I’m trying to stay under 100 daily grams, as per your suggestion for weight loss. Thanks!

I’m SOOOO excited to find this! I made pikelets (small pancakes) this morning for my daughter but with self raising flour etc etc. I did have a couple and covered them in almond butter and banana and they were awesome, but now that I’ve found coconut pancakes they can be more primal! SO HAPPY!

I found an amazing coconut bread in one store, and of course, I wasn’t able to get the recipe. There are ingredients named on the cover, would anyone be able to come up with the amounts? And also what can hold them all together? This is in the bread: organic coconut flour, organic whole coconut, water, salt, and organic raisins (optional). It is gluten free, dairy free, wheat free, oil free and no sugar.
Thank you.

This sounds great! I haven’t seen any mention of almond meal on here tho. Best tasting flour ever….I don’t know if you could use it to make a bread, tho. Since I am newbie, my experience with it was making carrot cake, and it makes the BEST carrot cake ever…but you DO have to use some milled flour. So maybe you could make a little loaf of it using milled coconut flour…hmmm.

WOW i just made the coconut bread for breakfast.!. I omitted the honey and added one cup of applesauce as the batter seemed dry. Had to increase bake time by about 10 mins.
Beyond delicious! Even my two year old is gobbling it up!!!

I make coconut flour pancakes and tortillas with great success by adding a tablespoon of grass-fed gelatin to the mix. Since coconut flour baked goods can tend to crumble or rip, the gelatin gives such a great texture. They are very easy to flip without tearing!

Any suggestions when using coconut flour. Every time I use it, the final product is dry and i can’t get baked items to rise. I’ve switched to just using almond flour and the problems have gone away but I’d love to give coconut flour another try.

In your book The Primal Blue print, which i just bought, the coconut pancakes recipe says 1/2 cup of coconut flour and 3 eggs! This is the first recipe i tries as the picture looks great. But they fell apart and didnt taste good. This recipe above might work but i’m quite put off your book!